FREE DAILY EMAIL

Date : 22/07/2003
Source: Department of Labour
Title: Mdladlana: Launch of learnerships at South African Qualifications Authority


SPEECH BY THE HONOURABLE MMS MDLADLANA, MINISTER OF LABOUR, AT THE LAUNCH OF LEARNERSHIPS AT THE SOUTH AFRICAN QUALIFICATIONS AUTHORITY, 22 July 2003

Members and staff of the South African
Qualifications Authority
Representatives of Unisa
Colleagues from the Services SETA
Representatives of the press and media
Ladies and Gentlemen
Comrades and Colleagues

First, may I say how delighted I am to be here at the launch of yet another exciting and innovatory learnership initiative. At the Growth and Development Summit that took place on 7 June, representatives of government, business, trade unions and the wider community reaffirmed their commitment to learnerships. They also agreed on ambitious targets for the recruitment of new learners. We agreed to recruit some 73 000 learners by May next year. This is an ambitious target, but if every organisation and employer gets involved, it is a target that can be met. So I am pleased that the South African Qualifications Authority is getting involved, and is setting such a good and positive example.

The learnership that we are launching today - in Information Administration - represents the culmination of many months of hard work. It is also the result of an active partnership between the South African Qualifications Authority, Unisa, Quest and the Services SETA. Working in partnerships was a theme of the Growth and Development Summit as well. Government and its social partners recognised that government alone cannot meet the challenges that face our country. We are all affected by these challenges and must combine our talents and resources to address them. So I commend the Services SETA, Quest and Unisa in the investment of time, expertise and money that has been used to turn the idea of information administration into a practicable and working education and training programme.

I understand that this learnership programme within SAQA will be linked to the development of the Learner Database. The 10 learners that will be engaged in the programme will join the 21 000 learners already on one of the 503 learnerships now registered with my Department.

Some might argue that 10 learners are not many compared to the targets that we have set ourselves. But I am reminded of the comments of Charles Handy who writes and reflects on business practice. He ends his book The Empty Raincoat with the following statement:

"The world is up for reinvention in so many ways....What we do, what we belong to, why we do it, when we do it, where we do it - these may all be different and they could be better....Change comes from small initiatives which work, initiatives which imitated become the fashion."

So I hope that other organisations will follow this initiative so that we can make learnerships THE fashion. In the jargon of skills development I believe that this kind of learnership is called 'cross-cutting'. It is not an education and training programme that can be confined to just one sector. The administration of information, the manipulation and analysis of data, the storage and retrieval of facts and figures - all these activities and functions lie at the heart of a modern economy and knowledge society. So this must be a learnership that is relevant to government departments and to most employers and organisations. The Services SETA has done well to pioneer this programme. Employers need to remember that they can access any learnership - it does not have to be one that has been developed by 'their' SETA. So this learnership in education and training is not available only to employers that pay a levy to the Services SETA.

May I also wish the 10 learners who are beginning this programme all success and I hope you find the education and training that you received not just interesting and useful but also a spur to further study. The American author Mark Twain said that:

"Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run."

As cleanliness is the enemy of disease, so education and training not only defeats ignorance and despair, it also opens doors and gives people increasing options. So I hope our learners will make the most of this opportunity - and I wish you well.

We are all used now to hear references to the globalisation of trade and commerce. But we must also be aware of the emergence of a global knowledge and information society. Already we are becoming accustomed to communicating over a world network. There are over 150 million people in the world who use the Internet. Today there are 400 million PCs in the world and about a billion telephones. In a decade there will be a billion PCs and three billion telephones. The information technology sector is expanding worldwide at twice the rate of the world economy.

In these developments Africa lags behind. It has less than one percent of the world's Internet users. Whilst there are some highly innovative people and ideas - Mark Shuttleworth and Gauteng's Blue IQ Vision - are but two examples, we do not yet have the commitment to the knowledge society that can be seen for example in the Indian subcontinent. This is one reason why President Mbeki has signalled the development of strategies to promote the information and knowledge society as a priority for the African Union. He also recognises that a characteristic of the implementation of information technology is that it allows for leapfrogging. This means that countries and societies can leap across several generations and stages of technology and apply directly state-of-the-art technologies. So we can bypass decades.

We cannot rest in this global race towards the knowledge society lest we lose out forever. In a world where competitiveness reigns supreme we need to accept that a knowledge society is indispensable to our future prosperity and influence.

This SAQA/Services SETA is one further step in building this knowledge-based society. It is an innovation that I should like to place in context. You will remember the Greek challenge to pull out the tail of a horse. Some grabbed the tail and strained and strained - to no avail. The person who pulled out the tail - hair by solitary hair, won the challenge.

Thank you for inviting me today - and I hope that the 10 learners we greet today are only the start!

Source: Department of Labour (http://www.labour.gov.za)

SPONSORED BY

Advanced